Newsflash: The HiFi Shield has been confirmed working out of the box with this .tar update

Thanks to the very talented AML LE / Kodi developer kszaq it looks like we have the long awaited Multichannel (>2.0) PCM Audio decoding on AMLogic LE devices for Kodi Jarvis + Krypton going forward. Also EAC3(DD+) will now passthrough as well.

I've only tested DD+ passthrough with my TV, and that works just fine
Also in this release is HEVC playback improvements, the 3840x2160p 160Mb/s HEVC Jellyfish test file now plays without issues.

HiFi Shield support is untested, it will either work or will not. No troubleshooting or extra problem solving for the Shield will be provided.

I'm not an expert at this but the way I understand it is that previously to this update, there where two audio issues:

1. Multichannel audio formats that are not managed by any AVR, like AAC of FLAC, where not encoded to the raw format of PCM and it's original channels (normaly 5.1) but where either encoded to PCM 2.0 or by using the option "AC3 Transcode" where transcoded to Dolby. Now, without any option needed, FLAC and AAC are directly transformed as PCM with their original channels. You can leave Passthrough on since it doesn't apply for these formats.

2. DD+ Passthrough was not supported but now it is, but this you need to check in the passthrough options of course.

Last edited by Eneko on Fri Sep 09, 2016 4:33 am, edited 2 times in total.

Test releases do not get bumped to a new version number until, well they have been tested and found deserving.
I actually name the .tar's something relevant for filing purposes, otherwise you end up with a bunch of meaningless development numbers.
It will happen, just not yet.

Eneko wrote:
1. Multichannel audio formats that are not managed by any AVR, like AAC of FLAC, where not encoded to the raw format of PCM and it's original channels (normally 5.1) but where either encoded to PCM 2.0 or by using the option "AC3 Transcode" where transcoded to Dolby. Now, without any option needed, FLAC and AAC are directly transformed as PCM with their original channels. You can leave Passthrough on since it doesn't apply for these formats.

Yes exactly. The really good thing is with Kodi itself being able to decode those unsupported AVR Audio codecs, you now get lossless, bit perfect audio when Kodi decodes to Multichannel PCM and outputs that to an AVR, no more resampling and re-encoding to lossy AC3.

works with my setup!
I've run quick check of different audio codecs and there is only one issue I've found:
a file with audio
Stream #0:1(und): Audio: aac (HE-AAC), 48000 Hz, 5.1, fltp (default)
goes as 7.1 PCM (which is not bad), but I've selected "Best match" output configuration.
here is dmesg: http://sprunge.us/bQAi

Yes, I can confirm this. At first I didn't notice because since my AVR is configured for 5.1, the front display shows 5.1 PCM output with 5.1 AAC files. But if I go into my AVR's detailed onscreen info it does in fact show that the input is 7.1 PCM when the source file is only 5.1 AAC. This is fine for me, I won't notice the difference. But the 2 extra channels added is strange.

Tested this new testbuild. Crazy, finally DD+ is working Awesome kszaq! And thanks wrxtasy for including the changes

What I noticed: Pretty often audio/video sync problems. It is quite slight... about 10ms perhaps... but it varies every time I start the video... sometimes its there, sometimes not. But as soon as I change the audiostream during playback (eg. from german to english), no matter whether DTS or DD... the audio is completely out of sync... many seconds. I have to restart the video at the same resume point and everything is in sync again. Also pausing the video helps sometimes to find sync again.

jurand wrote:I have the same after changing audio track. But a quicker fix is to do a seek 10s back..

Known issue across all AMLogic Android and LibreELEC Kodi platforms. You simply cannot change Audio tracks within Kodi without stopping and restarting otherwise issues as discussed show themselves.

Gerrit507 wrote:Hello wrxtasy,
Thank you for the build, i'll test it this weekend

Is this fix also included in the LE sources? I'm asking because I want to build LE Krypton with this fix.

No its not in LE Krypton sources for the C2. I've been a bit busy getting the PCM Audio updates into Jarvis for the S905 WeTek devices.
I will try and start looking at updating the LE Kodi Krypton master when I get a spare moment.

Raybuntu wrote:I wonder how one can notice 10ms audio sync issues. I'm not mocking but you guys are pretty good spoting a/v sync issues. Obviously I can't. Keep up the good testing.

wrxtasy wrote:C'mon RB, I've heard on the Grapevine, some LE C2 Kodi users have Bionic Vision, - you know just like the old:
Six Million Dollar Man !

(This guy is a german, isn't he? I think it's a german nut driven plastic whatever guy... but: he can see the sync probs because of german "Gündlichkeit" )

Well yeah, perhaps it was 10 to 50ms , but I think it is oscillating between positive and negative sync difference, that is why it is so noticable and I simply spotted it because I did not see any sync problems until I updated to this testbuild and then it seemed to be varying every time I start the video over and over again.

Regarding changing audio tracks during playback: Now that you mention it, I remember you saying that once in one of the threads or in kodi.tv forum... perhaps it is worth mentioning in main opening post

Anyway, the capabilities of this board are simply awesome. Now the only drawback to raspberry seems to be just the 3D capabilities, but everything is just simply super great because of the efforts you all put into it

infinity85 wrote:
Anyway, the capabilities of this board are simply awesome. Now the only drawback to raspberry seems to be just the 3D capabilities, but everything is just simply super great because of the efforts you all put into it

Funny you should mention that as this bit at the bottom is what I added today - from Kodi forums...

Q. I want a Kodi media player, priced around $100 or less for use with my 1080p TV, that will play any 1080p content I throw at it with few limitations ?

RPi3: runnning LibreELEC Kodi. The Gold standard in Software support and with Kernel drivers for all manner of attached external hardware......

What are those 3D issues exactly? I haven't encountered any issues with 3D videos in general but I let my TV handle the picture. I can remember that my Rpi recognized that it's a 3D movie and also changed the menu to 3D, like it should be, but I still have to change the TV to the right 3D mode, or is there an easier way that the rpi / odroid handles the 3D picture and not the TV?

In short: The Odroid can handle 3D, but not as framepacked (not sure about this, though) or at least not at full hd. MVC (wich is actually like a video container, which contains material for both eyes with each 1080p and saving disk-space on the second-eye-side by storing only the differences to the first eye) is decoded correctly, but the output to the TV is only in half resolution. That means, that each eye will have output of 720p (2*720p = 1080p) at current state. The raspberry developers have managed to integrate the capability of outputting 1080p for each eye = same (full) resolution as hardware bluray players output framepacked 3D. Unfortunately I don't think that this will ever be addressed on the Odroid . I had hopes at first as well, but the seems nobody there, who is skilled enough in terms of AMLogic SOC stuff. All those developers are truly a big advantage of Raspberry community.
(I hope I did not write too much nonsense in my explanation above )

Gerrit507 wrote:
I can remember that my Rpi recognized that it's a 3D movie and also changed the menu to 3D, like it should be, but I still have to change the TV to the right 3D mode, or is there an easier way that the rpi / odroid handles the 3D picture and not the TV?

Yep, I think that this has to do with Frame Packed stuff. Afair the Raspberry outputs 3D always in FramePacked, so TV's usually automatically recognize this and this triggers the automatic switch in 3D mode in TVs. On Odroid something is different, probably it has something to do with the stuff I tried do explain above. However... wrxtasy included a patch some months ago from koying (Android Kodi developer), who had somehow managed to get this auto 3D switch implemented. Since then it is working indeed, but there is something odd with the settings. read this post: http://forum.odroid.com/viewtopic.php?f ... 50#p145239
...Long story short: If you leave the 3D settings in wrxtasys build on default state, it will ask you for the 3D Mode whenever you start a 3D movie. If you simply confirm the question (because it should actually always offer the correct mode), then the TV will autoswitch in 3D mode like you are used to have it from Raspberry. This bug (non working "preferred" setting) makes me really wonder, as the basic capability is actually working...I imagine having a script that simply presses "OK" automatically whenever I get the question about the 3D mode... then It would always autotrigger the TV. So this sounds really like a simple bug :/

Last edited by infinity85 on Sun Sep 18, 2016 7:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

I've noticed a problem in this build: after a few minutes (3-5 min) playing a flac file weird noises can be heard. After stop and play a few minutes without noises and then again the same issue.
Rolled back to LibreELEC-Odroid_C2.aarch64-7.1.0.Aug.img.zip - no such issue there.
here is dmesg tail: http://sprunge.us/VFbN

Assuming you are using a direct connection via HDMI cable, then the problem could be the HDMI cable. Perhaps you should try another one.

I think an another HDMI cable is worth a try even if the 192kHz FLAC works on your RPi2 because, as far as I remember, the raspberry is not capable of outputting 192kHz (max is 96kHz I believe). (Again) if I remember it correctly this missing 192kHz capability is the reason that no Raspberry has ever had DTS-HD or TrueHD support. To come around this the RPi delevopers integrated a PCM decoder capability, which could decode DTS-HD and TrueHD into PCM and then output those as digital PCM bitstream to the AVR. BUT doing this, only frequencies <=96kHz are arriving at an AVR.

Of course there might be some other bug in LibreELEC/AMLogic kernel or build, but for the first it could be worth a try to take another (at least HDMI 1.4) cable and see if it solves the problem. Would like to hear if and how you solved the problem somewhen

Plays fine at least on my setup with recent october build and Onkyo TX-NR616 AVR with a HDMI 2.0 Cable. My guess about the cable being the issue is not because of high or low quality cables, but about the used standard (HDMI 1.3, HDMI 2.0 etc.). But the issue might certainly be something else and I'm just having luck that it works on my AVR. I remember that 2 years ago OpenELEC had an issue with DTS passthrough on my AVR, but not on denons hmm... they got it fixed, so perhaps this here is similar and onkyo is on the lucky side this time.

As far as I know the Raspberry Pi series is not capable of outputting 192kHz / 24Bit if multichannel. It downsamples depending on the bandwidth. Stereo should work with 192/24.

So comparison with Raspberry Pi does not really help here. Perhaps better post the settings you've changed in Kodi/Settings/Audio tab.. my be there is something different.

@jaro_kr
You say mkv file is played fine... could you please provide the information your AVR displays about the played audio stream? I mean like I did with the OSD screenshot. What sample rate and how many channels does the AVR see there, if playing the mkv. Perhaps mkv is downsampled and although it has 192/24 inside, your AVR only gets 48kHz or so sent from the C2.

If I try the FLAC, then I have M-PCM 192/24 bit with 7.1 like screenshot shows (but media info says it is a 6ch flac, not 8ch hmm...)
If I play the mkv, then Receiver switches to DTS-HD MSTR 192kHz with 5.1 channels (matches the media info: 6ch). So this takes less bandwidth, just as an example. (I still guess, that the cable might make a difference, but who knows hm :/).

Last edited by infinity85 on Tue Oct 18, 2016 1:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

infinity85 wrote:Are we testing the same sample here?
As far as I know the Raspberry Pi series is not capable of outputting 192kHz / 24Bit if multichannel. It downsamples depending on the bandwith. Stereo should work with 192/24.

So comparison with Raspberry Pi does not really help here. Perhaps better post the settings you've changed in Kodi/Settings/Audio tab.. my be there is something different.

That is my understanding as well for the RPi.. (read the link below for Audio limitations on RPi PCM Multichannel)

noggin wrote:
The Pi/Pi2 only supports an HDMI audio bandwith for up to 4x192kHz streams, which isn't enough bandwidth to carry a max bitrate DTS HD-MA or Dolby True HD stream, which can carry 5.1 at 192kHz / 24 bit, and as they are lossless compression they can't guarantee to reduce the data rate at all times by a third. (Complex audio won't compress that much)

noggin wrote:
The Pi/Pi2 only supports an HDMI audio bandwith for up to 4x192kHz streams, which isn't enough bandwidth to carry a max bitrate DTS HD-MA or Dolby True HD stream, which can carry 5.1 at 192kHz / 24 bit, and as they are lossless compression they can't guarantee to reduce the data rate at all times by a third. (Complex audio won't compress that much)

Ah thanks for this reference... remembered I read this once, but couldn't find it for pointing to it in lasts posts.

On my setup your LibreELEC-Odroid_C2.aarch64-7.1.0.test.5.1.PCM.audio.tar behaves exactly the same as the recent october release. Same results as described in my last post.

Regarding HDMI CEC switching off my TV it is also the same, unfortunately. I'm curious what others will say about it after testing, perhaps it'll work there. How does it behave on your system? Does the TV simply turn off, or is it going into no-signal-mode? Well, anyways, that's a topic for the other thread, sorry

Plays fine at least on my setup with recent october build and Onkyo TX-NR616 AVR with a HDMI 2.0 Cable. My guess about the cable being the issue is not because of high or low quality cables, but about the used standard (HDMI 1.3, HDMI 2.0 etc.). But the issue might certainly be something else and I'm just having luck that it works on my AVR. I remember that 2 years ago OpenELEC had an issue with DTS passthrough on my AVR, but not on denons hmm... they got it fixed, so perhaps this here is similar and onkyo is on the lucky side this time.

As far as I know the Raspberry Pi series is not capable of outputting 192kHz / 24Bit if multichannel. It downsamples depending on the bandwidth. Stereo should work with 192/24.

So comparison with Raspberry Pi does not really help here. Perhaps better post the settings you've changed in Kodi/Settings/Audio tab.. my be there is something different.

@jaro_kr
You say mkv file is played fine... could you please provide the information your AVR displays about the played audio stream? I mean like I did with the OSD screenshot. What sample rate and how many channels does the AVR see there, if playing the mkv. Perhaps mkv is downsampled and although it has 192/24 inside, your AVR only gets 48kHz or so sent from the C2.

If I try the FLAC, then I have M-PCM 192/24 bit with 7.1 like screenshot shows (but media info says it is a 6ch flac, not 8ch hmm...)
If I play the mkv, then Receiver switches to DTS-HD MSTR 192kHz with 5.1 channels (matches the media info: 6ch). So this takes less bandwidth, just as an example. (I still guess, that the cable might make a difference, but who knows hm :/).

- i wasn't able to reply quickly -sorry, i'm outside my home... anyway, what i tried was on a same file definitely, mentioned by you : Beck - Sea Change (DTS-HDMA 24-192kHz 5.1 (45sec).flac
and audio playback I was able to hear, only when it was set in odroid c2 in System/Settings/audio output/output config. to fixed configuration and not much as 44.1 sampling rate - number of channels 7.1 or 2.0 (doesn't matter).
In the other hand I have another player - dune hd duo - connected with this avr system - same file, i'm able to play and sound is audible with passthrough configuration as well as pcm with highest possible rate (192/24) in both cases.

I do not want to spoil this Party, but i think there is still an error in the channelmapping. I tried the October update and the update in this thread from the 18. october , i did download the channelmap conf via wget mentioned in this Thread.

there is clean pink Noise, but mainly on the front speakers. I can here permanent pink noise coming with lower volume from the other connected speakers, but the signal is not going the circle way round ( Kodi is set to 8 channel Output) . My AVR, an Onkyo 606, states correct 7.1 MultichannelPCm and because the Signal is not distorted, you won´t here his Error while playing Music.

Is there still an asound.conf or .asoudrc file somewhere causing trouble?